I Started Investing in Myself at 26 and Could Not Believe I Had Waited

I had been reasonably deliberate about money since I started earning - saving consistently, contributing to my pension, maintaining a portfolio of index funds that I had built with some care.

At 26 in Brighton I had a financial picture that was meaningfully better than most of my peers and a professional development picture that was, I came to understand, considerably less deliberately managed than the financial one.

I had been waiting for my employer to provide the development I needed, which is a common and expensive error. My employer provided training that was relevant to my current role. My current role was not the only thing I needed to develop for.

The shift came from a conversation with a more senior person in my field who described, matter-of-factly, the amount she invested annually in her own development - courses, coaching, professional communities, the occasional week-long intensive in an area she was building toward. The number was not small.

The return on it, as she described it, was not abstract - it was specific promotions, specific opportunities, specific relationships that had opened specific doors. I ran the comparison against my own investment in development over the previous three years, which was close to zero beyond what my employer had provided, and then ran it against my financial investments over the same period, which had been deliberate and sustained.

The financial investments had grown by a reasonable percentage. The professional development investments had grown by nothing because I had not made them. I started deliberately investing in myself that year: a coaching engagement, two online courses in areas I was building toward, a professional community membership that connected me to people at the level I was working toward rather than the level I was at.

The return was faster and more legible than my financial investments. Within eighteen months I had moved into a role that was a genuine step change from where I had been and that would not have been accessible from my previous position without the specific capability development the investment had produced.